Free Republic

The notorious Wagner mercenary group that grabbed headlines over the weekend did more than carry out an attempted mutiny, it drew a serious psychological blow to Russia’s elite airborne command and control, the U.K. defense ministry assessed Thursday. In its move to advance north of Rostov-on-Don towards Moscow Saturday, Wagner forces shot down a "high value" Russian IL-22M airborne command post aircraft outside the town of Bugaevka, killing its crew and destroying one of the 12 "special mission aircraft." "The loss of this aircraft is likely to have a negative impact on Russian air and land operations. In the short...

The Belarusian government is struggling to thwart an internal guerrilla group that opposes Minsk’s assistance to Russia and has engaged in a sabotage campaign since the war in Ukraine kicked off. Earlier this week, opposition activists from the Association of Security Forces of Belarus (BYPOL), a group formed following the 2020 political turmoil in Belarus, attacked a Russian warplane outside the capital city using drones. "Belarusians will not allow the Russians to freely use our territory for the war with Ukraine, and we want to force them to leave," one retired Belarusian serviceman, who joined a group of saboteurs and...

Concerns over a Chinese invasion of Taiwan continue to mount with Beijing now suspected of involvement in damaging some of the island nation's undersea internet cables this week in another show of deliberate harassment. The disruption to Taiwan’s internet was not only a nuisance for the island’s inhabitants and visitors, it also revealed significant implications for Taiwan's national security.

U.S. armed forces will begin training up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers on the sophisticated Patriot missile system next week at Fort Sill, Okla., a defense official confirmed for Fox News Tuesday. The training is expected to take several months, though it will still be an expedited process in comparison to roughly year-long program the Patriot missile system traditionally takes. "The longer those troops are off the line – they're not actually engaged in combat – and so [the U.S. is] trying to work with Ukrainians to see what we can do to accelerate the training timeline," Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen....

Moscow has appointed Colonel-General Alexander Lapin as chief of staff of Russia’s ground forces, despite having been ousted as commander of the Russian Armed Forces' Central Military District in October, as Russian troops pursue a massive offensive in Donetsk, reports said Tuesday. The appointment was met with criticism from Russia hawks as Russian President Vladimir Putin looks to turn the tide in the near-year long war in Ukraine, where it has made little advances since it began losing territory in September. Lapin first received heavy backlash from top players in Putin’s war, including Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner founder...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to one of the most dangerous battlefronts in the war against Russia Tuesday when visiting with his troops on the front lines in Bakhmut. The small city in eastern Donetsk and its surrounding area has come to look like a scene out of World War II, as men fill muddy and freezing trenches that wind through destroyed landscapes, while the remnants of pummeled apartment blocks and scorched buildings show the effects of months of shelling in Bakhmut. -snip- Zelenskyy’s visit comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time conceded Tuesday that his 10-month-long...

An alleged "torture chamber" that housed Ukrainian children has been uncovered in Kherson, according to a top Ukrainian human rights official Wednesday. Speaking during a presentation on human rights abuses committed against Ukrainian civilians, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said officials uncovered evidence of the chamber through their investigations. (snip) "In one of the torture chambers, we discovered a separate cell where children were kept," he continued. Lubinets said people who were held in the chamber described a room next to theirs where they knew children had been held and which Russian officials referred to as the...

One anonymous Western official at the time told Reuters that Ukraine was seeing "kinetic effects" behind Russian lines, which was having "a significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership." The U.K. defense ministry pointed out that the Monday "explosions" were more significant given their locations hundreds of miles across Russian borders. At least two Tu-95 BEAR heavy bombers were damaged in the explosions and three people were reportedly killed. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called a meeting with his security council to discuss the country's domestic defenses after three airbases saw "explosions" this week. Russian officials looked to shore...

Russia is preparing to evacuate senior officers in the Federal Security Service (FSB) and their families from occupied areas of Ukraine, Kyiv on Wednesday claimed. According to the National Resistance Center (NRC), which is a civilian resistance office launched by the Ukrainian government following Russia’s invasion, senior Russian officers in the FSB have been "informed about the evacuation routes." The NRC said officials in all five occupied regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea – have been notified of evacuation plans.

Russia suffered another setback during Ukraine's counteroffensive, confirming it withdrew troops from the eastern town of Lyman, within the newly annexed Donetsk region. Ukraine’s armed forces on Saturday said they had "liberated" five settlements in the Donetsk region and encircled thousands of Russian soldiers. "Due to the risk to be encircled, the allied forces were withdrawn from Krasny Liman to more advantageous frontiers," Russia's Ministry of Defense said Saturday. "The Russian troops in the area of Lyman are encircled. Yampil, Novoselivka, Shandryholove, Drobysheve, and Stavky settlements are liberated. Stabilization measures are being conducted there," Serhii Cherevatyi, Speaker of the Eastern...

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hit back at Germany in a fiery message on Twitter Tuesday after Berlin refused to provide Kyiv with military vehicles earlier in the week. "Disappointing signals from Germany while Ukraine needs Leopards and Marders now – to liberate people and save them from genocide. Not a single rational argument on why these weapons cannot be supplied, only abstract fears and excuses," Kuleba said in an uncharacteristically aggressive message. "What is Berlin afraid of that Kyiv is not?" Germany has come under fire at home and abroad for apparent hesitancy to provide arms to Ukraine amid...

In the letter sent Monday, Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Robert Portman, R-Ohio, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., urged the Pentagon to increase the speed at which it was deploying the defensive aid agreed to in May under the $20 billion "Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations" package. "While the medium- and long-range air defense capabilities and HIMARS included in the June 27, 2022, and July 8, 2022 aid packages are a good start, these systems must be delivered at a pace and in quantity sufficient to impact the outcome of the fighting in the Donbas, Kherson and...

Kyiv on Saturday accused Russia of officially dragging Minsk into the war after missiles were fired at Ukraine from within Belarus’ borders. The Main Intelligence Agency of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine said "a mass rocket-bomb strike was launched" after 12 cruise missiles were fired from 6 planes. Another 24 missiles, also reportedly fired from within Belarus, were said to have hit Ukrainian military targets near Zhytomyr, an area less than 90 miles west of Kyiv, first reported Ukrainian news outlet Pravda.

The Kremlin on Thursday said Finland’s push to join NATO is a direct threat to Russia as well as the stability of the European continent and vowed to respond accordingly. "Finland’s entry into NATO will become a threat to Russia," Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Russian media outlets."The next expansion of NATO does not make our continent more stable and secure." "Of course, all this will become elements for a special analysis and development of the necessary measures in order to balance the situation and ensure our security," he added. The comments came after Finnish...

Trump accused Netanyahu of speaking up too quickly following what the former president has still yet to concede was a legitimate election. "Nobody did more for Bibi. And I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi," he said, referring to the former prime minister by his nickname. "But I also like loyalty. The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape." Despite Trump’s condemnation of Netanyahu, the then-prime minister was not amongst one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden for securing the presidential win. Netanyahu waited roughly 12...

"The Army itself – the army and the police forces were a mirror image in many ways – and we created and developed forces that looked like Western forces," Milley explained. "I think one of the big lessons learned here is maybe those forces were not designed appropriately for the type of mission." The general, who spoke to Fox News at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, said the fall of the Afghan government occurred much sooner than officials had expected, despite thorough planning in the withdrawal of U.S. forces. "The collapse of the Afghan army happened at a much...

The FBI on Tuesday arrested a local attorney and four members of the city council in Toledo, Ohio, for their alleged participation in a bribery and extortion scheme. Tyrone Riley, Yvonne Harper, Garrick “Gary” Johnson, Larry Sykes and Keith Mitchell were charged with bribery and extortion in a federal criminal complaint after a two-year investigation, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). “As alleged in the Complaint, four Toledo City Council members and a local attorney have been engaged in a pay-to-play scheme involving bribes for Council votes,” U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said in a statement to Fox News Wednesday....